“No government ever voluntarily reduced itself in size.” Ronald Reagan
The Democrats have an impending problem surfacing at an inopportune time: their beloved big government’s feckless response to our nation’s problems.
In the upcoming mid-term elections, someone will likely take the divisive and corrupt Harry Reid’s seat as Senate Majority Leader. I just hope he or she sprays it with Lysol first. Harry Reid will then have to face his biggest fear, as Nancy Pelosi did hers two years ago: having to fly commercial.
The Dems' pet program, ObamaCare, is a disaster. More and more Americans will lose their health insurance or have to pay more for it. Men now have to pay for gynecological exams and women must pay for prostate exams. The only winner under ObamaCare is RuPaul.
The middle class is making less. Under President Obama, the median annual household income has gone from about $55,000 to $50,000, the biggest drop ever. And Obama's plans for amnesty and open borders will create more competition for middle-class jobs, hurting Americans further.
Ditto for black unemployment. The recession officially ended a few months after Obama took office, and unemployment stood at 7.8%. Since then, the unemployment rate has fallen slightly, but not as much as in most recoveries. Yet black unemployment fell even less significantly, and for African-Americans age 16 to 19, it has actually gone up to 36%. Making it even worse, many have left the labor pool and live in the “safety net,” which has become a safety hammock of Obama’s burgeoning welfare state. Labor participation rates are at all-time lows and food stamp use at all-time highs. Our government sells dependency.
Against all evidence, Republicans manage to lose PR battles on fake issues like the "war on women” and being anti-black.
Republicans should disprove these lies with simple facts. Against Democrats' objections, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, freed the slaves. FDR, a Democrat, appointed his first Supreme Court Justice, Democrat Senator Hugo Black, who was a KKK member and lawyer. President Eisenhower sent the National Guard to integrate Little Rock, Arkansas Central High School in 1957. Democratic Governor Orval Faubus kept trying to enforce segregation against Republican Eisenhower’s attempts to integrate. The Democrat Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, did the same.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd was not only a Klan member, he was a recruitment officer. His sheet had badges on it.
Republican concession and cowering on race issues are not supported by facts but by Democratic spin and attempts to manipulate black voters, and by a lack of education on our country's history.
As for the fake GOP “war on women” – this from the Democrat party of Chappaquiddick swim champion Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Al Gore and Anthony Weiner?
Money goes where it is treated best, and that is no longer the United States. Through "inversion," corporations are fleeing or trying to flee America with its highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. Obama had to make laws to keep companies in the US, which is sad; they should want to be here. Add the cost of regulation, ObamaCare and the general contempt for business of this administration and it explains our economic malaise. Obama is so bad that Jimmy Carter is starting to compare him to Jimmy Carter.
Ebola is not Obama’s fault. More Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have died of Ebola in the U.S. But the administration's confused response, like the Secret Service/Benghazi/ObamaCare/IRS debacles, does highlight that bigger government is not better. The cure will come from private sector drug companies which have a profit motive. When the next pandemic comes, I just hope there are still drug companies in America to produce a vaccination to save us.
Democrats are a monolithic group of lemmings voting in lockstep with their leaders. Even battleground purple state Democrat Senators who say they are independent (and running away from Obama like he has Ebola) vote with him 97% of the time.
At least Republicans have dissent and debate within the ranks instigated by Libertarian and Tea Party voices. It’s healthy. Democrats have no such debate. They just do what party leaders Debbie “Was-a-Man” Schultz, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama tell them to do.
Voters have a chance to be heard on Tuesday. To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, it is not how Washington works that should concern us; it is how to make it stop. Getting big government, high taxing Democrats out of office is a start.
Ron Hart is a syndicated libertarian op-ed humorist, author and TV/radio commentator. Email Ron@RonaldHart.com or visit: RonaldHart.com.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Dems Underestimate Voters' Intellect